


Void

by Vicky_Strife



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Depressed Eddie Brock, Depression, Dissociation, Grief/Mourning, Loneliness, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Touch-Starved, Withdrawal, supportive anne and dan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:08:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vicky_Strife/pseuds/Vicky_Strife
Summary: Basically what I think happened between the moment Venom sacrificied himself for Eddie and the end of the movie. Make sure to check the tags as some scenes might be triggering.
Relationships: Eddie Brock & Venom Symbiote, Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 65
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [McReap-me-now-76 (SkordeSoldat)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkordeSoldat/gifts).



> How can you go back to being alone in your body after experiencing another way to be whole?

Every nerve sizzling with excruciating pain, fire and smoke burning his lungs, and through the chaos of continuous explosions, Venom’s voice, eerily clear and resigned.

 _“_ **Goodbye, Eddie** . _”_

“Venom, no!!!” Eddie shouts back immediately as the understanding of what is going to happen makes his heart jump in his throat.

The alien’s last tendrils stretch away from his body, _leaving_ him and the man frantically tries to grab onto them, to keep them close.

A small flash of teeth that might have been a smile, then Venom deploys like a black parachute above Eddie, a giant oil shield protecting him from the final and most violent explosion. 

Eddie’s eyes close on reflex because of the heat blast that instantly dries the tears on his cheeks and the reporter plummets into cold waters, the contrast in temperature knocking the wind out of him.

The coldness of the sea against his abused skin feels like swimming in a pool of needles but the pain has at least Eddie jerking awake and coming up to the surface. 

He breaches with a gasp and looks around desperately, but what he’s looking for has disappeared. He forcefully swallow down the sobs that threaten to escape him as he swims to the shore, hoists himself on unsteady, wet sand, stumbles, crawls until the waves can’t crash against his legs anymore. 

He drops onto his side, panting hard, and stares at the ocean in front of him. 

Everything’s silent now, apart from the ringing in his ears and the endless roll of the waves.

Everything’s cold now.

Eddie closes his arms around himself in an attempt to stop shaking, a scream leaving his mouth on its own accord. “Venom!!!”

No one replies to his call, no deep voice rumbles in the back of his skull with a grin he’s always been able to _hear_ , it’s just him and the uncaring immensity of the ocean, just _part_ of him and the uncaring immensity of the ocean.

He jumps on his feet, powered by rage alone as he yells the alien’s name again and again, voice faltering more and more each time, two syllables swept away by the sea breeze.

Right as he was about to give up, he spots a dark mass on the beach, a few feet away from him. He runs towards it, hope fluttering in his stomach. 

He falls down on his knees and touches the heap.

Seaweed.

Eddie recoils in disgust and pulls on his hair with a whimper. The disappointment is too much, ends up breaking the dam. 

He cries as he shouts insults he doesn’t mean at the symbiote, rocking back and forth, alone on the moonlit beach, so _alone_ that he feels it in his bones. 

This is how Anne finds him half an hour later; shattered and incomplete.

* * *

“Mr Brock, you need to eat.”

Eddie looks blankly at the woman in white sitting next to his bed. He hadn’t noticed her. There’s a piece of meat on the fork she’s holding.

“Mr Brock?”

“I’m not hungry,” he hears himself reply gruffly. These might be the first words he’s uttered in a while.

She purses her lips, obviously inconvenienced. “Please, you haven’t eaten anything in three days. You can’t remain on IV forever, especially when you have no physical injuries preventing you from eating solid food.”

Three days. 

Three days since… Eddie swallows, nods. He looks at the plate in front of him. It’s a steak with greens. He thinks about how the alien used to love beef and struggles to breathe. 

“Not hungry,” he repeats. And it’s true. He feels nothing. No pain, no hunger, no want. 

“It’s okay, we’ll try again later then. Try to rest, Mr Brock.” She stands up and walks away with the food tray. 

Eddie goes back to staring at the crisp white wall, dwelling in a mind-numbing emptiness that ironically weighs on him like lead.

A minute or an hour later, he notices scratches on his arms that he doesn’t remember getting. He tries to touch them and realizes both of his hands are cuffed to the bed rails.

“What…”

Why is he restrained? 

“Eddie!” Anne exclaims with relief as she enters the room, Dan on her tail.

Eddie startles before he smiles, tries to at least. “Hey,” he croaks with a slight delay.

Anne hugs him tight and Dan squeezes his shoulder comfortingly. The warm touch is welcome, but it’s not the one he’s been missing for three days.

“How are you?” her ex girlfriend asks as she sits down next to him, the doctor on the other side of the bed.

“I’m okay.” 

Everyone in the room knows it’s a lie, Eddie included. Anne tilts her heard in a way he knows all too well, the one that means, _don’t bullshit me, Eddie Charles Allan Brock_ , and he needs to look away. 

He doesn’t deserve her concern, not after everything he’s put her through.

“Why am I restrained?”

An easy deflection. Still, Dan and Anne exchange a look, one he doesn’t like. “You don’t remember?”

He shakes his head.

She points at his wounds. “You did this to yourself. When you- when I found you, on the beach near the Life Foundation, you were clawing at your skin and you didn’t seem to- to _recognize_ me. I brought you to the nearest hospital but they had to transfer you here.”

The information takes a few seconds to click in Eddie’s brain. “I’m in a psych ward?” 

“Yes. They said the accident must have triggered an intense dissociative episode.”

Eddie hums. Thinking feels like wading through mud. “‘The accident’. That’s what you told’em?”

Anne nods with a complicit wink. “Well, I couldn’t tell them you were saving the world from an alien invasion, could I?”

Eddie smiles mirthlessly. “Right.”

There’s a short pause, in which Anne worries her bottom lip, before she gently takes hold of his right hand, whispering, “What about... _him_?”

Eddie grits his teeth as Venom’s last words echo in his brain, unprompted. “He’s gone.” He can’t bring himself to say the other word.

She squeezes his hand. “Oh, Eddie, I’m so sorry.” He stares at their intertwined fingers, how it used to fill him with so much warmth and love while all it does now is feel _wrong_.

He glances at Dan, hesitating, before he realizes that he has nothing left to lose and asks Anne under his breath, “Do you… do you ever miss him?”

Her eyes widen briefly, then she frowns, reflecting. “No… not really.” 

Eddie looks down, both disappointed and oddly relieved. He slips free from Anne’s hold.

She lets him. “But I wasn’t… with him as long as you have been. And he said you were the only ‘compatible’ one, whatever that means.” 

**_“He’s the right one, the right one, the one, one, one, one, forever one...”_ ** happily chants Venom’s ghost in Eddie’s brain.

The man nods once, twice, thrice and falls into the rhythm, rocking himself as best as he can in his semi-lying position, metallic chains clicking. He tries to speak to distract himself from the memories, but it only conjures the worst, recent one. “He saved me, you know. From the fire. That’s how he- he-” He exhales shakily, trying real hard not to break down in front of his ex and her new boyfriend as the urge to scratch makes his arms move on their own.

Anne and Dan notice him pulling on his ties and each immediately grabs one of his restless hands to pin it to the mattress. “It wasn’t your fault, Eddie! It was his decision...” 

“We’re here for you, you’re not alone,” Dan adds softly, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb.

“I AM alone!!!” Eddie snaps, making both his visitors jump. His vision is swimming with unshed tears and he wants to scream until his voice breaks. 

He wants to get rid of that void inside of him, that coldness lurking under every inch of skin and in the spaces between his organs where a warm presence had made its home not so long ago, and more than anything, he wants to hear Venom’s voice again, he’s sick of hearing only his own pathetic thoughts, spinning like a carousel. 

He sees the hurt in his friends’ eyes, the only two persons still giving a shit about him, and how could he say that to their face when they’re sitting right here next to him?

He looks away. Shame burns his cheeks and the back of his neck. “I-I’m sorry. Please, just- just go.”

They hesitate, exchanging a worried look, but end up obliging him. 

“We’ll come back again tomorrow,” says Dan.

“Try to rest, okay?” adds Anne.

The door closes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eddie's descent into Hell continues.

Eddie is too agitated to sleep that night. 

His wrists itch because of the cuffs and the rest of his body feels like white noise. He pops all the pills the nurse gave him but they only make him nauseous, so he absently watches the little TV in the upper right corner of his white room until the rising sun paints it yellow.

Anne and Dan come back around noon, just like they said they would. 

He forces himself to eat only to make them smile, mashed potatoes with stew. He can barely taste it. 

Some of the patterns of the sauce reminds him of Venom’s tendrils and his nails dig red crescents into his palms.

“Eddie?”

Eddie looks up, startled. He must have zoned out; Dan seems to be waiting for an answer.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you’ve suffered from any mental health issues before? Any history of it in your family?”

“I’m sorry, Eddie, I asked Dan not to treat you like a  _ patient  _ but he just can’t help himself,” Anne huffs, frowning accusatively at the doctor. 

“I just want to understand!”

Anne lays the fork she was feeding Eddie with on the plate a little too hard and it clings on the ceramic. Eddie winces at the sharp noise that echoes in his skull. “He doesn’t need your understanding, he needs your  _ support _ !”

“I  _ am  _ supporting him, in the only way I know how!”

“Please, don’t fight over me.” Eddie’s voice is so small that he has to repeat himself for them to hear him. 

When they do, they immediately stop arguing and apologize, their jaw tensed with shame and anger.

Eddie remembers his single mom, passed out on the kitchen table as always when he came home from college, her long, strawberry blonde hair spread like a halo around her head. The memory elicits a distant twinge in his heart and he clings to it on reflex, because it is the only emotion he has felt since ‘the accident’.

“Addiction, alcoholism... I don’t know much about my fam,” he shrugs. “Most of’em I’ve never met.”

Dan nods, very much looking like Eddie has just confirmed his theory. “Okay, thanks for telling me.” He awkwardly clears his throat. “Were  _ you  _ an addict?”

If looks could kill, Anne’s would have obliterated him on the spot. “Okay,  _ that’s  _ enough. You have no right to question him like that, you’re not his therapist, Dan.”

“I know! I just-”

Anne raises an eyebrow; Dan visibly deflates.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I need to be a friend, not a wannabe psychiatrist. I’m sorry, Eddie.”

Eddie shrugs again. “No problem, I get it.”

Anne is quick to change the topic. “Are they kind to you here?” she asks, ready to file a lawsuit if need be.

Honestly, Eddie doesn’t remember half the people who waltz around his room daily to interrogate him or probe at him. “Yeah, they’re alright.”

“Good. Well, we already have to head back to work... If you need anything just call us, okay?”

Eddie doesn’t want them to go. His stomach twists at the mere prospect of being alone again between these four barren walls. A sneering voice inside his head - his own voice - reminds him that he already is. 

He swallows the lump in his throat. “Okay. Thank you both. Really.”

They hug him, then leave. 

Eddie goes back to staring at the empty walls and it feels like introspection. 

* * *

A woman comes to sit beside him in the afternoon. Her dark eyes briefly travel across his file before she presents herself. “Hello, Mr Brock. I’m Dr Rossi, head of the psychiatry department of this hospital. Would you be okay with chatting for a bit?”

Eddie lifts one shoulder, he has little energy for anything else. 

The doctor smiles nonetheless. “Excellent. How are you feeling right now?”

_ Cold. Empty _ . “Tired.”

She writes something down. “How did you sleep last night?”

“I didn’t.” 

She stops writing. “Not at all? And the… two nights before? The first day you were sedated so we could treat your wounds and burns.” 

He shakes his head. There seems to be glitter on the wall and he watches it shimmering, hypnotized. 

The doctor notices him dissociating and adds a note on the file. “Any idea why you can’t sleep?” she asks in a gentler voice.

Eddie works his jaw. “I-I have flashbacks.”

She hums. “It’s totally normal for patients suffering from post traumatic stress disorder to experience flashbacks and insomnia. At least you’ve started eating again, so we can take you off the IV. It’s already a good sign!”

Eddie nods. He doesn’t share her enthusiasm.

“Also, your blood test results came back. You suffer from anemia and your serotonin levels are unusually low, but it’s nothing medication and therapy can’t fix. Have you taken your medicine?”

“Yeah.”

“And they didn’t help?”

“No.”

“Antidepressants take between 2-3 weeks to start working and can make symptoms worse in the beginning… And the Xanax was perhaps not strong enough. I’m going to prescribe you a sleeping pill for tonight, okay? The sooner we fix your sleep schedule, the sooner we’ll fix the rest,” she winks encouragingly.

Eddie wants to tell her that he can’t be fixed because there has never been any case like him before in history, but he can’t. “Could you take off the restraints? They itch like hell.”

Dr Rossi studies him for a while above her glasses. “Sure, but if you feel the urge to self harm, ring a nurse immediately, alright?”

“Alright.”

She crosses her legs and lays the file on her thigh. “So, about the acci-”

“ _ No _ .” 

The word comes out so fast that it surprises both of them. 

Eddie immediately feels bad for shutting her down and starts worrying about the consequences of him not cooperating. What if they label him as insane and keep him here forever? What if they put the handcuffs back? Sedate him out of his mind again? What if Anne and Dan get tired of him not getting better and stop visiting him?

Oblivious to Eddie’s silent panic attack, the doctor only smiles and gets on her feet. “Of course, I understand. It’s too soon and you’re sleep deprived. I’m going to let you rest and tell a nurse to release you on my way out. See you tomorrow, Mr Brock.”

He releases the breath he had been unconsciously holding in as soon as the door closes. 

And jumps when it reopens again a few minutes later for the nurse to untie him, heart hammering against his ribs. He’s getting sick of this room, of the constant in-and-outs and of his own weakness. 

He massages his wrists as he slowly sits up on the bed, the change of position forcing him to wait for his dizziness to subside. 

There’s a bathroom near the entrance, so he decides to take a long overdue shower. He barely recognizes his own reflection in the mirror; his hair is matted to his skull with sweat and his skin is red and peeling around the edges of his face. Thankfully, his beard hides most of the damage. There’s nothing to hide the dark circles under his eyes, though. He takes his first unassisted piss in days and showers, water set as hot as it will go.

He’s still cold, colder than he’s ever been. 

* * *

Eddie is floating on a black sea. 

The moonlight makes the waves look like silk as they rock him peacefully, endlessly. He closes his eyes and sighs, content. 

He is finally warm. 

Suddenly, the water gets thicker and smoother, licking at his body in a way he recognizes instantly. 

His eyes shoot open. “Venom?!”

He feels the answer resonate in his ribcage before he even hears it, dark and low. 

“ **_Eddie…_ ** ”

Eddie chokes on a sob as the symbiote envelops him, hugging him tight. His tremors cease, each nook and cranny of his body filled with the hot mass of the alien, claiming what has been theirs from the start. He opens his mouth in a primal cry, overwhelmed by the sensation of fullness that he never thought he would experience again. 

The blood in his veins is thrumming, running across his limbs like lava, pooling in his lower stomach. Pressure and soft strokes all around and inside him, remodelling his fingers into claws, his mouth into a maw. The warmth keeps increasing until Eddie struggles to breathe and pleasure turns into pain. 

Confused, he looks up at the impassive moon above him, the only source of light, and gasps when it burns red like an ember. Then it explodes, sending fiery debris all over them. 

He screams as Venom screams, ripped away from him. 

Eddie jolts awake in his hospital bed, hyperventilating. He can’t stop shivering, the intense heat from his dream harshly replaced with the cold reality, his eyes stinging.

He turns on the light and jumps off his bed to pace the room, frantically rubbing and scratching every piece of skin he can get to in a desperate attempt to soothe himself. When he glances down, he notices a damp, sticky spot on his white gown and curses as soon as he realizes what it is. 

He takes two steps in the direction of the bathroom before remembering that he doesn’t have any spare clothes, takes two steps back, whimpers helplessly, standing there, at a loss and more disgusted with himself than he’s ever been.

He buries his face into his hands and slides down against a wall, crying silently until a patrolling nurse helps him back in bed with shallow words of encouragement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know the bare minimum about medical stuff, I just googled a few things real quick. I also know the symbiote canonically feeds on phenethylamine, not serotonin, but according to Google, “Phenethylamine increases a chemical in the brain called serotonin.” so if the symbiote fed on Eddie’s phene-thing, it would make sense his serotonin would be abnormally low as a result. So let’s just say Eddie’s mood was already weakened by Venom’s presence and when the symbiote disappeared, the sadness and emptiness only worsened Eddie’s prone-to-depression brain. Does it make sense? 
> 
> Also his anemia comes from being literally impaled by Riot and almost bleeding out before Venom saved him. I mean, at this point Eddie had to be dead and Venom resurrected him, let's be real. This isn't the MCU.
> 
> Fun fact: the glitter walls thing is a hallucination caused by dissociation that I have almost daily. Also insomnia makes it worse. So yeah. Watch me project my own mental issues on Eddie Brock. At least that part I didn't need to google.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for suicidal thoughts/suicidal ideation and blood. Still not a happy chapter, sorry, but at least it finally puts the comfort in hurt/comfort! Thank you all for the comments and kudos ♥

Eddie emerges from sleep like one would emerge from quicksand.

Struggling slowly. 

His eyelids are lead curtains that he has to force open only to close them back immediately, blinded by the sunlight pouring into his room. His throat is dry, his body stiff. He goes to rub his face but his hands are tied.

Again.

The memories of the night before rush back to him, giving all of these details meaning.

He curses through gritted teeth. He doesn't want to cry again. He can’t! He needs to get his shit together so that he can get out of here...

_ What for? _ sneers the nasty voice in his head.  _ So you can go back to living alone in a crusty apartment, wallowing over the perfect life that you used to have before  _ **_you_ ** _ ruined it? _

“Shut up,” Eddie croaks, chest tightening.

The voice laughs, _ I can’t shut up, idiot, I’m you. _

“I said shut up!!!” he screams, yanking on his restraints.

_ “ _ Excuse me?”

Eddie opens his eyes to a nurse standing next to his bed with a meal tray, looking back at him warily.

“I-I wasn’t talking to- I’m sorry,” he blurts out in panic because being caught talking to himself can’t possibly make his case better.

“Oh. It’s okay, Mr Brock,” the nurse replies with a forced smile. She eyes the handcuffs, then the trail, probably wondering if she can trust him not to stab her with the fork once she takes them off. 

Eddie feels like a monster, and that means a lot coming from someone who used to actually turn into a cannibalistic one thanks to an alien symbiote. A mirthless chuckle escapes him at the thought, which doesn’t reassure the nurse at all.

Thankfully, Anne and Dan arrive, and the woman is all too happy to let them deal with him. “What the hell happened to his arms?” Anne exclaims right as she was about to leave. 

Eddie looks at his arms and at their new scratches. There are dried blood rivulets running across his skin, red turned almost brown.  _ Oh _ .

The nurse shrugs. “I don’t know, I wasn’t there last night, it was my coworker’s shift. She just said he had a crisis and needed to be tied again.”

Anne’s eyebrows shoot up. “And that’s it? She didn’t clean the wounds or call a therapist?”

The nurse shifts her weight from one foot to the other, arms crossed. “Ma’am, we’re understaffed, we have many other patients to look after… We’re just doing the best we can with the directives we have.”

Anne’s voice is colder than ice when she dismisses her. “I see. You can go now, thank you.” The lawyer sits down next to Eddie with an aggravated exhale and brushes a few loose strands of hair to the side of his head. He briefly closes his eyes and hums at the contact. Her fingertips are warm and the gesture, comforting. 

Anne purses her lips as she stares at a point somewhere on Eddie’s forehead, which means that she is deep in thoughts. 

The tone in which she then addresses Dan confirms that they have been productive. “We need to take him home with us.”

Both men blink at her in surprise. 

“He can’t stay here, what are they gonna do? Restrain him every time he has a crisis? Pump him so full of meds he becomes comatose? He’s not insane, he doesn’t  _ belong  _ here!”

Dan winces. “Anne, as much as it pains me to see him like that, we both work full-time, how could we possibly… look after him?”

“I’m not a stray, I can get by on my own,” Eddie intervenes, bubbling with an unfamiliar feeling. Hope, perhaps? He grabs Anne’s hand and squeezes it as his voice breaks halfway through his plea, still hoarse from hours of crying. “Don’t leave me here,  _ please! _ I’m sick of this place, of these walls…”

He is fully aware that he is once again abusing Anne and Dan’s kindness but he is too desperate to care. He just wants out. He won’t bother them, he can clean the dishes and-

Dan sighs loud enough to startle him. “Alright! Alright. I’m gonna talk to the person in charge, if there even is one...”

Eddie grabs the sleeve of his plaid shirt, relief washing over him. If he could, he would tackle the man in an embrace. Instead, he searches his foggy memory. “Dr Rossi! That’s her name. And- thanks, Dan.”

The doctor pats his shoulder and exits the room. 

Eddie turns his attention back to Anne, who is smiling at him as sweetly as she used to, when they were still together and everything was fine. It makes his heart aches so he looks away. 

“I’m glad you found someone better than me,” he says. 

Anne doesn’t say anything.

* * *

During the drive, Eddie comes to realize that the idea of moving in with his ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend, as a mentally ill shell of a man, is a ridiculously bad one.

Yet it had taken very little convincing for Dr Rossi to release him; all Dan had to do was flash his badge and a Colgate smile and Eddie was free. The only condition was that he had to come back once a week for a therapy session.  


Nauseous from watching the moving scenery out of the window, he chooses to stare at his hands running up and down his legs in slow motion. He doesn't feel like he controls nor owns them. They don't stop stroking the rough fabric of his jeans, the only piece of clothing that they have been able to salvage after the ‘accident’, as his gray sweatshirt had been torn and covered in blood. 

_ His  _ blood.

He remembers life slipping out of him on that platform, how calm and warm he had felt as the growing darkness made him feel so heavy yet so light. Before he knows it, he is picturing himself slitting his wrists open with a razor blade in Anne’s vintage bathtub, the one with the golden lion feet that they fought hard to afford. 

Venom wouldn’t be here to stop him from bleeding out, this time. That fact settles in the pit of his stomach like a block of ice.

“Eddie?”

He jumps, sheepishly meeting Anne’s gaze through the rearview mirror. There is no way she could have known what he was daydreaming about, right? Still, the guilt twists his insides because how could he _do_ that to them, after _everything_ they did for him?

“How about we stop for some donuts at the coffee shop you used to like, down the street?”

Eddie doesn’t remember and doesn’t care what he eats or drinks, certainly doesn't  _ deserve _ it, but she is trying to be nice to him, so he forces a smile. “Sounds great.”

Anne parks the car on the side of the road before leaving him alone with Dan as she jogs to said coffee shop. The doctor hums a song along with the radio as he divides his attention between surveying Eddie and the passersby. 

“D-Dan are you sure it’s okay? Me, with you two,” Eddie croaks after a while, the silence too uncomfortable. He clasps his hands together to not pick at his scabs. They are starting to itch already.  


The black-haired man stops drumming his fingers on the window sill to turn around. “Of course, Eddie! I don’t know you that well but Anne cares a lot about you and you seem to be a good guy. You sure as hell didn’t deserve what happened to you.”

Eddie hates that the man is sincere. “I don’t know’bout that… I messed up big time, with Anne. Broke her trust.”

The doctor sits back in his seat. His tone is unreadable when he replies, “I know. She told me everything.”

Anne comes back, and their conversation ends.

* * *

Eddie is lying on the couch, as it had been agreed upon, trying to sleep. There are two blankets on him plus Mr Belvedere, but he is still cold. So he absentmindedly pets the cat’s luxurious fur and watches the shadows move clockwise on the ceiling. Eventually, the sun rises and Anne and Dan wake up to go to work. 

He doesn’t tell them that he didn’t sleep and wishes them a nice day.

Then he feeds the cat, cleans the kitchen and vacuums the whole apartment as an exutoire for his anxiety and a proof of his usefulness. He would sooner die than be a burden to them. 

_ You already are. _

Eddie sighs and misses once again Venom’s voice, whose insults would never bite, unlike his own.

At sundown, Anne and Dan come back, and they all eat Chinese takeout in the dining room.

For a while, Eddie forgets. He laughs and participates in the conversation, and everything looks for the best, so much so that Anne smiles and takes Dan’s hand under the table.

That changes during the night because Eddie still can’t sleep. He took a sleeping pill but it is not enough. The blankets are not enough. The cat is not enough. He can’t stop shivering. Mr Belvedere ends up jumping off him because of his incessant toss and turn, leaving him hugging himself and stifling his sobs, desperate for warmth.

_ Thank God Venom died so that he doesn’t have to see you that way… _

Eddie cries harder. He doesn’t hear Anne approaching before her delicate hand carefully touches his shoulder. 

“Eddie? What’s wrong?” she asks in a sleepy voice.

He can’t reply. 

Everything is wrong. Venom is not here and he can’t live without them.

Anne rubs his back and sits on the edge of the couch. “Oh, Eddie…”

He wants to apologize, to tell her to go back to sleep and ignore him but the lump in his throat won’t let him. 

“Come with me,” she says  eventually,  tugging at the blankets. “This is  _ non  _ negotiable, Eddie Brock,” she warns when he shakes his head.

He lets her take his hand and guide him to the dimly lit bedroom, where Dan cracks one eye open and blinks at them from the king size bed, half asleep, his hair a mess. “Huh… are we gonna have a threesome? ‘Cause I’m fine with it but-”

Anne chuckles before she silences him with a finger on his mouth and pulls Eddie onto the bed until he is lying down in the middle of it. She turns off the lights while Dan adjusts the sheets over them three, then the couple snuggles against Eddie, enveloping him in their body warmth. 

Eddie’s tears seem infinite. The last thing that he registers are two kisses being pressed on his wet temples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I managed to make you cry at least a little bit because I sure did writing this haha
> 
> Also does anybody else have that inner voice that kinda sounds like evil you and she's so loud sometimes you have to say "shut up!!" out loud and people look at you weird? no? just me? ok


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, sorry for not updating sooner, life has been a real bitch. And now it’s even worse, because I’m writing this from my quarantined home...
> 
> I hope you and your loved ones are all safe. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience and your comments, and to all the subscribers who don’t comment, I still see and appreciate you ❤️

Eddie jolts awake at the shrill of an alarm. 

Lying next to him, Anne curses and turns off her phone before flopping back down on the bed. 

Heart still beating fast against his ribcage, he smiles at her and at her blonde hair sticking in all directions. She shyly reciprocates, half of her face hidden by the pillow, and Eddie wonders, how many mornings have started exactly like this, light and perfect? 

This time, something feels wrong, however; the usual warmth in Anne’s brown eyes is absent and she keeps glancing behind him. Eddie’s confusion only increases when he realizes that a foreign, male arm is wrapped around his waist and something hard is poking his ass.

He twists himself to look over his shoulder and reality falls onto him like an ice cold shower. 

Right, he’s not with Anne anymore. She has Dan now, the smart, ridiculously good guy currently spooning him. Eddie is just the mentally fragile ex who leeches off their kindness, nothing more than a p-

No growl stops him from thinking that word but he stops himself nonetheless, out of habit. 

Out of respect.

Venom.

Venom is dead.

Eddie feels like crying but the pain is too physical, too raw to be translated into tears. It just won’t come out. The hole in his chest will keep growing until there’s nothing left.

“Eddie? You okay?” Anne asks, touching his wrist carefully. She has always been able to sense him spiralling.

Dan saves him from lying by waking up. “Mmh…? Fuck! Sorry, Eddie, I didn’t mean to-”, the doctor splutters in embarrassment, his arm awkwardly hovering in the air.

“S’okay.”

“A-alright. Huh, I’m gonna get up, then.” He peels himself off Eddie and rushes out of the bedroom while Anne bites her lip not to laugh. 

Cold air immediately sweeps into the abandoned spot that is Eddie’s back, making him shiver and reflexively snuggle against Anne. She lets him, reluctantly.

“Eddie,” she sighs, “I have to go to work.”

A hoarse syllable leaves his lips, barely audible in the crook of her neck. “Please.”

He doesn’t know what he’s pleading for. Or rather he knows, but can’t have it anyway.

Anne sighs and pets his hair for a while. “Stay in bed, okay? You don’t need to do anything today. Just rest and call me or the hospital if you’re feeling bad. And don’t forget to take your meds.”

She cups his face in her hands when he remains unresponsive, forcing him to make direct eye contact. “You hear me, Eddie Brock?”

He has never wanted to kiss her more than in this instant. Iron hand in a velvet glove, keeping him afloat, just like before. 

“I hear you, ma’am,” he replies, nostalgia tainting his smirk. 

Satisfied, she leaves him too.

Eddie stays in the gradually cooling bed until he hears the front door close. They need  _ some _ privacy, after all. He can’t keep invading their space. Yet he can’t live on his own either. 

He’s too scared of what he could do.

He rolls on his back with a loud exhale, pressing his palms against his eyes hard enough to see glitter. Terrible thoughts keep spinning in his head and there’s no alien to distract him from them with different, yet just as terrible thoughts.

Eddie misses Venom like a part of himself, like an amputee still feeling the leg he lost in combat despite knowing, rationally, that it’s not here anymore. 

He splays his fingers over his chest to try and replicate the feeling of them merging into him. In vain. Nothing feels as good, as  _ powerful _ .

_ You’ll never feel that way again, so why don’t you kill yourself? Or do you want to bother your ex girlfriend a little longer? Haven’t you been enough of a nuisance to her? _

There she is, the nasty voice that sounds both like him and his mother when she had had one too many. And all it took for it to reappear was for him to be alone for fifteen minutes.

Thankfully, a hungry Mr Belvedere manages to pull him out of both his head and the bed with demanding meows.

* * *

It rains all day. The gray weather only makes time flow slower. Eddie manages to watch one movie and actually follow the plot without zoning out too much.

Small victories.

Curled up on the couch, he thinks that he should look for a job but the mere idea tires him. He should probably ask his therapist if she thinks he’s ready, first. 

A glance at his scabby arms would be enough of an answer.

Eddie is wearing one of Dan’s oversized hoodies to avoid picking at them, a teal blue one with the name of the medical school he went to. This inevitably reminds Eddie of what happened in the morning, of the warm body pressed against him, making him feel safe, hot breath on his neck.

A familiar heat pools in his lower stomach but the thought of doing anything about it, in  _ their  _ home, fills him with guilt and self-loathing. He is a lot of things, yet a creep is not one of them.

So he goes to take a scorching hot shower and not so accidentally re-opens a few wounds.

* * *

Eddie cooked dinner, spaghettis with meatballs and tomato sauce. He has never been a chef but the recipe is fool-proof and the only useful thing his mother ever taught him.

All three of them are sitting in the dining room, eating in silence once the daily formalities have been exchanged.

Dan breaks it first, pointing at his hoodie cheerfully. “Looks good on you, Eddie, you should keep it!” 

Anne nods in agreement, while Eddie mumbles a “thank you” and tries hard not to blush under the attention.

“So, how does it feel to be parasite-free?” the doctor adds conversationally a moment later.

Anne freezes to look at Eddie warily, as if he were either going to shout or burst into tears. Eddie’s only reaction is to lose all interest in the food. 

He swallows past the knot in his throat and says, “they never liked being called that.”

“They?” Dan frowns.

Anne’s eyes are begging him to shut up. He can’t. The strange urge to talk about a lost one, as if it could bring them back. Honor their memory.

“Their name was Venom, and they didn’t like being called a parasite.” His lips pull into a sad smile. “At all.” 

Dan glances at Anne, visibly confused. “Eddie, it-  _ they  _ were going to kill you. Judging from the state of your liver when I put you in the MRI, you had two, maybe three more days to live.”

A cold shiver runs down Eddie’s spine at that, shiver that turns into an angry tremble. “It was an accident! They were starving, they didn’t mean to hurt me!”

The lack of retort makes him even more defensive, even more eager to explain what Venom really was,  _ who  _ Venom really was. 

“Venom was here for me when no one else was. Anne, no, I didn’t mean it like that, please don’t feel bad, it- it was all on me,” he precises when the lawyer looks away guiltily. “They… they saw me at my worst, and somehow, it was still something worth saving, to them.”

He stares at his shaking hand, his distorted reflection in the fork. “They betrayed their species to save me, and all of humanity,  _ sacrificed  _ themselves for us. Venom was a hero.” His voice, unused to so much talking, breaks on the last word, forcing him to finish his rant in a whisper. “Not a parasite.”

Dan stares at him for a long time, processing, while Eddie digests his own words. They feel truthful yet incomplete. Impersonal. Venom was so much more to him, as if he had explained the drop and left the ocean unspoken.

“Look, Eddie… obviously I don’t know everything here and Anne doesn’t speak about it either, but I guess I was wrong about this... ‘Venom’ and, as surreal as it is for me to say it, I’m sorry for your loss.”

Eddie nods and wipes his eyes with his sleeve before standing up to clean the table, because if he stays still one more second he will break down for good. Anne stands up to help him, followed by Dan.

This night, Eddie remains on the couch - his choice - and listens to the couple argue on the other side of the wall.

* * *

Above a wild beach outside San Francisco, a seagull flies in circles, looking for its breakfast in the first rays of sunlight. 

A single dead fish stranded on the sand piques its interest so the bird descends to peck at it, unaware of the black substance it accidentally ingests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that HOPE?? At last?? ;) 
> 
> A few details/explanations:
> 
> \- My headcanon is that Dan doesn’t know about Anne also having hosted Venom for a while. 
> 
> \- I know that in the movie, everyone calls Venom a “he” but I prefer the gender neutral term as Klyntars are canonically an agender species.
> 
> \- Eddie was NOT being homophobic/repressed about his desires for Dan, only feeling bad about lusting after his ex gf's new bf in their own goddamn home while they're being so kind to him. 
> 
> I'm super insecure about this chapter because I'm not used to describing emotions and angst, porn is more my thing lol so I hope it was not too bad ;;w;;

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, and that I described Eddie's mental state accurately. I don't have PTSD but I do have depression and BPD so I'm quite familiar with dissociative states and sudden breakdowns... Don't hesitate to suggest improvements though, as comments are every writer's fuel ;;;w;;;


End file.
